ROANOKE TIMES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, July 18, 1994                   TAG: 9407180103
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LONG POND, PA.                                LENGTH: Long


ROOKIES SHOW THEIR METTLE BY NOTCHING TOP 5 FINISHES

After finishing fourth in the Miller 500 at Pocono International Raceway Sunday, tying his best finish of the year, Jeff Burton found it hard to believe he was only the third-best rookie in the race.

"It's a shame to run as good as we did, finish fourth in the race and not win the rookie of the race - to finish third in the rookie race," Burton said. "That's pretty strange."

But the fourth-place finish was a result of trying to win, he said.

Instead of making a gas-only stop during his final visit to the pits, Burton also took right-side tires. The extra time in the pits meant he came back out in about eighth place. The new tires allowed him to regain lost ground, but not enough to win.

Burton's engine broke on the last lap, but it didn't cost him any positions as he limped to the finish. Earlier in the race, he led 16 laps.

As for his brother Ward's second-place finish, Jeff said, "That's pretty neat having him finish second and us fourth. But I'd rather us finish second and him fourth."

For Ward Burton, the second-place finish was his first top 10, or top five, or top anything of the year. He led six laps. His previous best was 16th at Martinsville.

"After all we've been through this year, we needed something like that," he said. Referring to the blistering problems he had with his Hoosier tires in practice Saturday, he said, "It didn't look good this time yesterday, but [the tires] did a heck of a job. [Winner Geoff] Bodine was just in a different league today. When he got in front of me [on lap 195], he just coasted."

Rookie Joe Nemechek, who finished third, said, "We ran out of gas when we crossed the finish line, but it was just a great day. It feels good up here."

\ TROUBLES FOR TWO OF THE BIG THREE: Engine troubles marred the race for Ernie Irvan and Rusty Wallace, but while Wallace limped to a ninth-place finish on seven cylinders, Irvan's problems knocked him out of the race.

"Evidently, we broke a timing chain or camshaft or something" in the engine, Irvan said.

It was his second DNF (did not finish) in a row, and his 37th-place finish dropped him from four points to 93 points behind Winston Cup championship leader Dale Earnhardt, who never led a lap but finished seventh. Irvan led one lap.

Wallace, who led 12 laps, said: "We broke a rocker arm and finished ninth. We were lucky to do that."

\ GANT'S STRONG RUN: In the midst of a miserable final year in the Winston Cup series, Harry Gant found some of his old magic.

For most of the first half of the race, he was Bodine's only challenger. His Chevy was smoking almost the entire time, but he stayed on Bodine's tail as the two drove away from the field.

And he passed Bodine twice, leading a total of five laps.

But disaster struck on lap 111, when his car became a smoke bomb in turn 3 and he spun. A broken oil fitting knocked him out of the race and left him in 38th place.

"I really think I could have beat Geoff today," Gant said. "Those Hoosiers were great all day long. We were running a lot faster than anybody else and didn't blister any, and we could have run a whole lot faster. There at the last the oil cooler broke off. A piece of metal came up off the track and knocked out the grille."

\ A WAR OF WORDS: Standing next to his heavily damaged car in the garage with only 20 laps in the books, Ted Musgrave minced no words toward the object of his anger - Derrike Cope.

"I can see why Cale Yarborough got rid of his driver," Musgrave said after Cope banged him in the rear end and sent his Ford into the wall in turn 3. "I don't know what's wrong with him. He just keeps running into people and putting them out. He flat ran into the back of us and turned us around and put us out for the day."

Cope was in no mood to be insulted.

"First of all, Ted Musgrave is an idiot," he said. "I made a mistake, possibly, and I took him out. . . . Hey, I'm tired of all this whining. Let these guys win a race before they whine so much."

In the press room, one reporter noted how ironic it was the dispute was between the driver for The Family Channel (Musgrave's sponsor) and the driver for Children's Miracle Network (Cope's sponsor).

\ 14TH CAREER VICTORY: Bodine's victory was the 14th of his career. It was his second at Pocono. He won the Miller 500 here in 1988, also on Hoosier tires.

\ IF IT WEREN'T FOR BAD LUCK: "When it's not running good, nothing ever goes wrong with it," Rick Mast said after dropping out of the race on lap 102 while running third. "When it's running good, something always goes wrong." The Rockbridge Baths driver said he was running at no more than 75 percent when his Ford started running hot and then lost a cylinder. He finished 40th.

\ NOT TOO BAD: Morgan Shepherd said his fifth-place finish in the Wood Brothers' Ford came despite the fact "we kind of struggled all day. We pushed and were loose and we made some changes that really didn't help the car."

Keywords:
AUTO RACING



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